Ethernet Switching and Forwarding Method, System and Apparatus

1. An Ethernet switching and forwarding method, comprising: receiving, by an ingress port, an Ethernet message, allocating to the message a Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) tag which is uniform at the ingress port in accordance with attribute of the ingress port; determining a forwarding mode in accordance with the VLAN tag and a VLAN attribute table, wherein the VLAN attribute table defines a forwarding plane to which the VLAN tag belongs; sending the message to one of forwarding planes corresponding to the forwarding mode, each of which forwarding planes corresponds to a forwarding mode; determining, by the forwarding plane, an egress port in accordance with the received message and the forwarding mode, and sending the message to the egress port in the forwarding mode; and encapsulating, by the egress port, the message in accordance with an attribute of the egress port, and forwarding the message; wherein the ingress port comprises a port attribute table in which table entries of port types and table entries of VLAN tag processing rules comprising insertion, deletion, modification or replacement are set, and the VLAN attribute table in which forwarding modes are set; and the ingress port allocates to the received message the VLAN tag, which is uniform at the ingress port and indicates the forwarding mode, by inserting, deleting, modifying, or replacing the VLAN tag, in accordance with the port attribute table and the VLAN attribute table.

2. The method according to claim 1 , after the forwarding plane receives the Ethernet message and before the forwarding plane sends the received Ethernet message to the egress port, further comprising: determining, by the forwarding plane, whether to capture the received Ethernet message in accordance with a message capturing policy, and if determining to capture the message, executing a process on the message in the message capturing policy; otherwise, sending the message to the egress port in the forwarding mode; and the process in the message capturing policy comprises capturing, capturing and forwarding, transparent forwarding, or discarding.

3. The method according to claim 1 , wherein: the ingress port is a user side port and the egress port is a network side port; or the ingress port is a network side port and the egress port is a user side port.

4. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the forwarding plane comprises a standard Ethernet forwarding plane, a multiplex Ethernet forwarding plane, a layer-3 routing and forwarding plane, an across-Virtual Local Area Network multicast forwarding plane, a point-to-point Virtual Local Area Network forwarding plane, or a point-to-point double Virtual Local Area Network forwarding plane.

5. The method according to claim 4 , wherein the forwarding plane further comprises a transparent point-to-point Virtual Local Area Network forwarding plane or a transparent point-to-point double Virtual Local Area Network forwarding plane.

6. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the forwarding modes at the port attribute table are independent for each Virtual Local Area Network tag.

7. An Ethernet switching and forwarding system, comprising: an ingress port configured to receive an Ethernet message, allocate to the message a Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) tag which is uniform at the ingress port in accordance with attribute of the ingress port, determine a forwarding mode in accordance with the VLAN tag and a VLAN attribute table, wherein the VLAN attribute table defines a forwarding plane to which the VLAN tag belongs, and send the message to one of forwarding planes corresponding to the forwarding mode, each of which forwarding planes corresponds to a forwarding mode; the forwarding plane configured to determine an egress port in accordance with the forwarding mode, and send the message to the egress port in the forwarding mode; and the egress port configured to encapsulate the received message in accordance with an attribute of the egress port, and forward the message, wherein the ingress port comprises a port attribute table in which table entries of port types and table entries of VLAN tag processing rules comprising insertion, deletion, modification or replacement are set, and the VLAN attribute table in which forwarding modes are set; the ingress port allocates to the received message the VLAN tag, which is uniform at the ingress port and indicates the forwarding mode, by inserting, deleting, modifying, or replacing the VLAN tag, in accordance with the port attribute table and the VLAN attribute table.

8. The system according to claim 7 , wherein the forwarding plane is further configured to, before sending the received message to the egress port, process the message in a message capturing policy if determining to capture the received Ethernet message in accordance with the message capturing policy, and send the message to the egress port in the forwarding mode if determining not to capture the received Ethernet message.

9. The system according to claim 7 , wherein: the ingress port is a user side port and the egress port is a network side port; or the ingress port is a network side port and the egress port is a user side port.

10. The system according to claim 9 , wherein the forwarding plane comprises a standard Ethernet forwarding plane, a multiplex Ethernet forwarding plane, a layer-3 routing and forwarding plane, an across-Virtual Local Area Network multicast forwarding plane, a point-to-point Virtual Local Area Network forwarding plane, a point-to-point double Virtual Local Area Network forwarding plane, a transparent point-to-point Virtual Local Area Network forwarding plane, or a transparent point-to-point double Virtual Local Area Network forwarding plane; and the Ethernet switching and forwarding system comprises any one or combination of the planes.

11. An Ethernet switching and forwarding apparatus, comprising: an ingress port configured to receive an Ethernet message, allocate to the message a Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) tag which is uniform at the ingress port in accordance with attribute of the ingress port, determine a forwarding mode in accordance with the VLAN tag and a VLAN attribute table, wherein the VLAN attribute table defines a forwarding plane to which the VLAN tag belongs, and send the message to one of forwarding modules corresponding to the forwarding mode, each of which forwarding modules corresponds to a forwarding mode; the forwarding module configured to determine an egress port in accordance with the forwarding mode, and send the message to the egress port in the forwarding mode; and the egress port configured to encapsulate the received message in accordance with an attribute of the egress port, and forward the message, wherein the ingress port comprises a port attribute table in which table entries of port types and table entries of VLAN tag processing rules comprising insertion, deletion, modification or replacement are set, and the VLAN attribute table in which forwarding modes are set; the ingress port allocates to the received message the VLAN tag, which is uniform at the ingress port and indicates the forwarding mode, by inserting, deleting, modifying, or replacing the VLAN tag, in accordance with the port attribute table and the VLAN attribute table.

12. The apparatus according to claim 11 , wherein the forwarding module is further configured to, before sending the received message to the egress port, process the message in a message capturing policy if determining to capture the received Ethernet message in accordance with the message capturing policy, and send the message to the egress port in the forwarding mode if determining not to capture the received Ethernet message.

13. The apparatus according to claim 11 , wherein: the ingress port is a user side port and the egress port is a network side port; or the ingress port is a network side port and the egress port is a user side port.

14. The apparatus according to claim 11 , wherein the forwarding module comprises a standard Ethernet forwarding module, a multiplex Ethernet forwarding module, a layer-3 routing and forwarding module, an across-Virtual Local Area Network multicast forwarding module, a point-to-point Virtual Local Area Network forwarding module, a point-to-point double Virtual Local Area Network forwarding module, a transparent point-to-point Virtual Local Area Network forwarding module, or a transparent point-to-point double Virtual Local Area Network forwarding module; and the Ethernet switching and forwarding apparatus comprises any one or combination of the modules.

15. The apparatus according to claim 11 , wherein the Ethernet switching and forwarding apparatus is arranged in an access device, an Ethernet aggregation device, or an Ethernet switching and forwarding chip.

16. An Ethernet switching and forwarding method, comprising: receiving, by an ingress port, an Ethernet message, allocating to the message a Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) tag which is uniform at the ingress port in accordance with attribute of the ingress port; determining a forwarding mode in accordance with the VLAN tag and a VLAN attribute table, wherein the VLAN attribute table defines a forwarding plane to which the VLAN tag belongs; sending the message to one of forwarding planes corresponding to the forwarding mode, each of which forwarding planes corresponds to a forwarding mode; determining, by the forwarding plane, an egress port in accordance with the received message and the forwarding mode, and sending the message to the egress port in the forwarding mode; and encapsulating, by the egress port, the message in accordance with an attribute of the egress port, and forwarding the message; wherein the ingress port comprises a port attribute table in which table entries of port types are set, and the VLAN attribute table in which forwarding modes are set; the ingress port allocates to the received message the VLAN tag in accordance with port attribute table and indicates the forwarding mode in accordance with the VLAN attribute table.

17. An Ethernet switching and forwarding apparatus, comprising: an ingress port configured to receive an Ethernet message, allocate to the message a Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) tag which is uniform at the ingress port in accordance with attribute of the ingress port, determine a forwarding mode in accordance with the VLAN tag and a VLAN attribute table, wherein the VLAN attribute table defines a forwarding plane to which the VLAN tag belongs, and send the message to one of forwarding modules corresponding to the forwarding mode, each of which forwarding planes corresponds to a forwarding mode; the forwarding module configured to determine an egress port in accordance with the forwarding mode, and send the message to the egress port in the forwarding mode; and the egress port configured to encapsulate the received message in accordance with an attribute of the egress port, and forward the message, wherein the ingress port comprises a port attribute table in which table entries of port types are set, and the VLAN attribute table in which forwarding modes are set; the ingress port allocates to the received message the VLAN tag in accordance with port attribute table and indicates the forwarding mode in accordance with and the VLAN attribute table.